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Take These Two Steps To Beat The Coming Shortage Of Leaders

This article is by Sara Canaday, a career strategist and corporate speaker and author of You—According to Them: Uncovering the Blind Spots That Impact Your Reputation and Your Career.

American companies are facing a major leadership crisis. More than 10,000 baby boomers are retiring every day, and when talented senior leaders head for the door, they take decades of valuable experience with them. A recent survey predicted a 30% drop in the number of appropriately aged managers available for leadership roles between 2009 and 2015. To make matters worse, professionals considered emerging leaders account for only 8% to 10% of the current talent pool.

Bottom line, the demand for quality leadership is expected to far outpace the supply in the coming years. And that means organizations are facing a leadership succession challenge bigger than ever before.

American companies that depend on experienced senior leadership as they try to compete effectively in today’s global business environment will find themselves in a precarious position. They’ll have to ask their remaining leaders to perform at even higher levels. In addition, they’ll quickly have to perfect the art of identifying high-potential employees earlier and grooming them for key leadership roles.

How can companies start today to confront the impending leadership crisis? During my years of leadership consulting, I have recommended two key steps for a broad range of organizations in different industries, large and small, national and multinational. The results have consistently been outstanding, and I believe these strategies will be even more valuable in the future.

Step 1: Search for your future top executives by analyzing their combination of tangible and intangible skills.

Finding warm bodies to fill the corner offices isn’t the problem; finding the right people is the critical distinction. Companies need to evaluate professionals in a way that allows them to pinpoint the genuine rising stars from among the scores of hard workers. It’s not just about looking at résumés and credentials. The key is looking for a combination of tangible and intangible skill sets. That is what will make or break companies in the new era of leadership deficit.

Certainly tangible and technical skills form an important foundation for a person’s ability to do a particular job. We expect a chief financial officer to be knowledgeable about accounting and financial standards. It’s a given that the chief technology officer will be computer savvy. But to identify true future leaders, we have to look for a different set of capabilities and behaviors. They must possess intangible skills that will really set them apart.

For instance, the most successful future leaders know how to inspire teams to generate results. They can communicate and collaborate spanning different countries, different cultures, and different generations. They can give feedback and coaching that encourages rather than breaks the spirit. They can handle their emotions effectively, and they know how to read and respond to the emotions of those around them. They need to combine almost opposite traits, being confident yet humble, energetic yet calm in a crisis, strategic yet conceptual, competitive yet empathetic, decisive yet flexible. To begin with, they must have the raw skills that can be refined into a compelling and charismatic executive presence.

Overall, professionals with strong intangible skills have much higher self-awareness and genuinely understand their leadership effect. Companies that recognize the value of these intangible skills and ensure that their emerging leaders possess them will be poised for success in the new order of dwindling senior guidance.

Step 2: Help your high potentials hone their intangible skills as they rise through the company.

Once you’ve identified your future executives, nurture them so they are truly ready for leadership when the time comes. Today far too many professionals are promoted to management without adequate training, coaching, and mentoring. But boosting their technical knowledge is only part of the solution. To maximize their potential, you must get them training in critical leadership areas.

Try to support your rising stars with opportunities to enhance their self-awareness and confront their professional blind spots. When they have a clear understanding of how their strengths and weaknesses shape their decisions and behaviors, they can lead much more effectively. Help them practice conscious communication that focuses on understanding others’ perspectives. Provide them with education to build their flexibility, empathy, stress tolerance, approachability, and collaboration. Make sure they are trained in successfully communicating their own values and the company’s values. Research proves that intangible skills are frequently overlooked in the realm of professional development, but they can make the biggest impact on the corporate bottom line.

In my work with companies, I have seen remarkable results for organizations that focus on intangible skills in finding and evaluating top talent—hiring people who have them, identifying future leaders who excel at them, and providing support to strengthen them. As the demands on leaders increase significantly and the pool of senior professionals continues to drain, I’m confident this approach will be even more valuable.

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Excellent points Sarah. Being a generation of invincibles that knew we would always be, us Baby Boomers did a pretty poor job of finding and grooming our replacements.

A lesson we need to learn, and pass on quickly is the need to search for, identify, and develop future leaders. That effort needs to start well below the executive level. In fact, it’s vital that mid-managers know how to recognize and begin developing leaders and for that to be ingrained in the culture as something all leaders in the company do as a matter of course.

You raised a time-critical issue; and one that’s too easily brushed aside as executives deal with the crisis of the day. A few comments within your insightful article jumped out at me.

1 – “…ask remaining leaders to perform at higher levels…” Our experience is that corporate leaders need to get their managers, leaders and entire team performing at a higher level now. Give them the mental tools to think critically and objectively; to make decisions without emotion; and also give them new problem solving tools. Many will respond; and a relative handful will thrive on this new approach. That handful may well be the talent pool to replace those that will retire in the near future. But as you say, there are many facets of a person’s personality and abilities to consider for executive leadership.

2 – “…handle their emotions effectively…” It’s far too easy to get overwhelmed when faced with multiple problems. World-class leaders are typically able to compartmentalize their emotions so they can focus on the most critical task at hand. It is something to practice daily because it is an ongoing process. Compartmentalizing is one of the skills for directing and controlling mental energy.

What I find most fascinating about this article is that a 2012 Forbes Insight Report indicated that out of 1.5 million executives in the U.S., only 25% are women and 10% are racial/ethnic minorities. AND, the pipeline to these executive positions reflects less than 30% women and 15% for African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians combined.

Perhaps the executives and companies who are so concerned about the shortage of leaders aren’t looking at the broader pool of high potential diverse talent.

Leadership Is a Strong Demeanor and Which Lacks Nothing – It is Comprehensive.

Our Corporate Leaders in Our Country who Attend motivational symposiums and seminars to Build up their Strategic Marketing Plans; Have Lost Sight of Our American Leadership Heritage.

Corporate CEO’s who Deliver Leadership on a Daily by Minute Bases have a Strong Understanding of Comprehensive Leadership. These Type Persons; Believe in Throwing Strikes instead of Balls to Gain Daily Home Runs.

Bridge Builder:

Since When does a World Famous Painter; Ever Lack a Paint Brush. “ Sistine Chapel “…

Corporate Leadership Rest on the Achievements of, Strategist, Planners, and Thinkers within the Infrastructure of a Corporations Objective Performance Values.

Our Famous Fore Fathers of our Country lay down the Distinguished Pattern and Design of Leadership and gave it Its Blessings of Greatness. The 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence were Natural Soil Base Leaders that “ Lacked Nothing “ but Challenges.

They did not attend ‘ motivational speaker sessions ‘, they were the “ Criteria of Motivation “; for they were Walking Testimonies of Action and Pro-Action. They did not Need a Corporate Protein Drink.

They Were Idealist and Proficient Risk Takers of Faith to Protect our Country and Our Well Being To Build and Establish a Leadership Continuum in America.

Our American Corporations have Benefited from Their Task Taking Abilities To Create Corporate Fortunes and Job Opportunity and Longevity Employment.

Thoughts To Ponder:

American Industry is Sliding downward, and due to Our Lack of Faith in our Nations Creator and Our Sacred Writings of our Fore Fathers.

President John F. Kennedy Testified of Our Remarkable American Leadership.

“ Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You; Ask What You Can Do For Your Country “